Making Friends With My Nemesis, Christmas

My grudge with Christmas goes way back. Every holiday season when the songs start playing in stores I cringe. When the decorations go up I think, “what a ridiculous waste!” When there are long lines at stores and all I want to buy is this one sweater on sale, but have to wait an eternity I am annoyed. When songs and people coax me to be joyful I feel a burning silent rage.

But something is different now.

I’ll tell you where it began.

The holidays were tricky for me as a child. Many probably have a similar experience. My mom celebrated Channukah with us for eight nights at our house. Dad celebrated Christmas with us at his house. Sometimes the holidays overlapped.

I was sensitive to my parents’ emotions, tried not to be any trouble for them, be grateful, and wanted them to be happy as a general rule. A people pleaser in the middle of a contentious situation is a little Sisyphean.

Divorce can really suck the fun out of the holidays.

Most kids my age were going to visit family during the break or getting visitors from afar. Not us. We were navigating who would have us for which nights and did we have everything we needed packed and ready to go.

The kids in tv shows and movies? They were having a ball every Christmas. The media did not reflect my life and it felt unfair.

There were many sweet memories, beautiful presents, socks, and nice moments.

I am lucky that we had two homes and two sets of presents.

Did I realize that as a child? Of course not. I came to resent the holidays, because in my world it did not feel joyful.

It felt wrought with dodging questions about what was happening at the other parent's house, not wanting to get the other parent in trouble, and trying not to add to their problems.

We knew Santa wasn’t real; there was no magic. I knew the secret kids weren’t supposed to know.

Flying reindeer who bully each other and Santa doesn’t intervene? Why are you okay with a stranger breaking into your house in the middle of the night? The messages are very mixed.

I love the fall and winter. I love Halloween; tolerate Thanksgiving well enough. But Christmas, if a holiday could be one, was my nemesis.

But now I have a son, I am an adult, and things have changed. I have been thinking about so many things. For the holidays I have a few hopes for us:

1. My son will not sense the anger in me that I usually feel during the holidays, especially so close to his own birthday.

2. I would like us all to be able to freely enjoy the holiday season together.

3. It takes a lot of energy to hate on Christmas and I just don’t feel like doing that anymore. So this will make it easier.

So I have decided to end my grudge with Christmas. Once the decision was made and declared to my husband it was a weight lifted from my mind. One less problem to hang onto.

Will we get a massive tree and decorations? Nope.

Will I complain at the sight of them? Maybe, but much less than my norm.

Will we spend excessively on presents? Unlikely.

I have chosen happiness and joy. For my son, my family, and most importantly for me!